


your love will be safe with me

by emwrites



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Other, The Styles Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:56:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emwrites/pseuds/emwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And finally it’s his turn and Edward is whispering in his ear about how fantastic he is and how he’ll do just fine and god forbid if he gets nervous and throws up who even cares, just fucking sing something, and so he goes in and sings something and gets a yes and for the first time in sixteen years he feels like he’s outshining his twin brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your love will be safe with me

One day old and beaming parents smile down into the tiny faces of their brand new, precious additions to the family.

All of the hopes and the dreams being imagined as they stare and the beautiful baby boys will never remember this moment but it’s something that a parent won’t ever forget.

-

Three; one of the very first things Harry remembers clearly – and oh, what a disappointing first memory – is Ed stealing his truck in the backyard and toddling away with it and Harry, his tiny body filling with an infantile sort of rage stumbles after him, yelling ‘Ed! Stop! _MUM!_ ’ in a futile attempt to recover his toy.

And Edward turns and grins a silly three year old grin and Harry pokes out his tongue because he saw a kid do it on the telly and then mum’s there yelling because ‘it’s rude to poke out tongues at people’ and somehow even at three that he knows that his brother has the upper hand.

He lets Ed keep the truck.

-

Seven years and Dad is leaving; he’s still here but Harry understands that he’s already gone and he doesn’t know why and Ed reckons he does but Harry thinks he’s lying because Gemma doesn’t know either and Mum just keeps crying in secret and saying ‘when you’re older’.

Harry spends more of the year than he should curled up in bed, singing quietly to himself.

Two years later and Dad leaves properly.

Edward doesn’t even seem to care.

-

Nine and eleven months, almost ten, so near ten; Edward’s eyeing Harry with that look, that stupid look that almost definitely means something’s up, that Ed _needs_ something from him, and it’s stupid because he knows it will almost positively end up landing him in trouble.

But how do you say no to your twin brother?

Edward explains that he saw these older kids doing this thing with some cups filled with water on the ground at school and he thinks it would be oh so funny if he did it to Gemma’s bedroom, but of course he could never do it alone and he needs Harry’s help, oh yes, and Gemma’s at the shops with her friends and Mum’s in the garden, and please oh please oh Harry come on don’t be a sissy.

Edward fills the cups and hands them to Harry, instructing on where to place them, and it quickly becomes evident that somehow Harry’s cornered himself in, and now he’s stuck in the room and the cups are blocking the door and Edward’s cackling and says ‘Sorry man!’ and leaves right before Gemma gets home and screams at Harry until Mum shows up and grounds him for a week.

And Harry thinks to himself a word he heard on a show he wasn’t supposed to be watching.

_My stupid fucking brother._

-

Thirteen and the family is watching the telly; always with the telly, Ed is quiet for once and Gemma and Mum talk about girly things like clothes and stuff and Harry gets bored of the telly and watches Edward instead.

He’s watching the TV and suddenly his face seems to turn a nasty shade of green and Harry looks to see a father walking out on his family on the little square screen.

The little boy on the telly cries.

Edward does too.

-

Fourteen and the past year’s been a living nightmare.

Edward goes into doctors, out of doctors, into treatment, out of treatment, psychiatrist after psychologist after therapist and this, that and the other and none of it makes any sense.

They say it’s ‘delayed shock’, that he never dealt with the family breakdown like Harry did, and seeing it happen to someone else triggered the depression he’d been hiding under his tricky nature for all those years.

And Harry doesn’t understand; he can’t possibly even begin to understand how to help or even to feel sorry for him, because Ed’s put him through so much and as much as he knows it’s terribly, terribly wrong, a small voice in Harry’s mind says _serves you right._

But he also knows his other half is hurting and he hurts too because sometimes it really does feel as though they’re connected somehow.

-

Fourteen and a half. Ed’s declared ‘recovered’, finishes therapy, and all is well in the Styles household, except that it’s not.

And Harry thinks Ed may as well not even exist.

He’s quiet and he _paints_ now like he thinks he’s some sort of artist because they had painting activities in treatment. He never picks on Harry anymore and he’s stopped devising and plotting and scheming, he just sits in his room and writes in journals and paints pictures of landscapes and strums a second hand guitar he begged and begged Mum to buy him.

And he never thought he’d say it but Harry knows he hates it, he hates new Ed; he needed someone to push him and make him be daring and challenge him and get him in trouble so that he wouldn’t be bored, and now everything’s so incredibly _boring_ and Edward is _boring as fuck_ and Holmes Chapel is _boring as fuck._

Harry wanders around town singing to himself, wondering if he’ll ever get out.

-

Fifteen and Harry comes home from school having decided that he’s going to be in a band. He can’t play any instruments but hell maybe he can sing, and surely a few friends will want to be in on the deal as well.

As predicted a few friends do want in, and they practice in the music house during lunch break at school.

Harry packs up on practice one day and leaves for class, Ed finding him somewhere along the way.

A random older boy looks Harry dead in the face and calls out “Stupid band _faggot_!”

Edward is suspended for three days for breaking the boys’ nose.

-

Sixteen and Ed reckons he wants to come watch Harry in battle of the bands. Harry isn’t sure he wants that; he’ll probably lose and it’ll be embarrassing, but Mum won’t let him say no. Though it turns out not a problem because White Eskimo is announced the winner and Harry’s over the moon and Ed hugs him and tells him he’s done so well.

And it’s then that Harry finally decides that this Edward might just be an adequate replacement for the tricky, meddling kid.

-

A few weeks later and Edward’s showed up unannounced in Harry’s room with a flyer for the X-Factor auditions next week.

“No,” Harry says.

And Edward leaves, telling him he’s a stupid fucking idiot if he doesn’t.

A week later and there they are, Mum, Ed and Harry, waiting in a line of what seems like a billion and one people and Harry knows he hasn’t got a chance in hell.

And finally it’s his turn and Edward is whispering in his ear about how fantastic he is and how he’ll do just fine and god forbid if he gets nervous and throws up who even cares, just _fucking sing something_ , and so he goes in and sings something and gets a yes and for the first time in sixteen years he feels like he’s outshining his twin brother.

-

Boot camp: failure.

Absolute failure.

-

An hour passes and suddenly someone’s in his room and telling him to stop packing; he’s needed on the stage _right now_ , and Ed’s grinning and Harry’s eyes are so red and swollen he thinks they might fall out of their sockets.

“Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson,” Simon Cowell says. “We’ve decided to put you through as a group. To judges houses.”

And it’s the best thing he’s ever heard in his whole life and he opens his arms to hug Ed, but of course Ed’s not there.

Instead one of the other four, the one called... Louis, he thinks, runs and jumps into his arms and they hug and cry and laugh and scream in each other’s faces because today and the best thing that’s ever happened to either of them.

Harry falls down under Louis’ weight and everybody laughs.

And suddenly he’s in a band on a TV show with four other lads who don’t even know each other but nobody really gives a fuck because it’s probably the greatest thing in the whole world.

-

Harry suggests they name their little band ‘One Direction’.

They do.

-

Harry sees a lot of young Edward in Louis.

They’ve been hanging out in the bungalow at Harry’s place back home, taking Simon’s advice to ‘go somewhere and get acquainted.’

Lou is an idiot; he’s always pranking, always getting people into trouble and really couldn’t give a damn. He’s two years older than Harry and he’s the most wonderful person Harry’s ever met.

He brings out a side of Harry that he thought was long gone, lost with Edward’s former self. But now it’s back, he can make jokes and laugh about them, and he feels dangerous and on the edge and Louis is making it all happen and oh, he’s missed this sort of erratic behaviour. Lou lives by his own made up motto of ‘being a bit mischievous’ and it’s wonderful.

But he also sees the best friend that Ed never quite was.

-

It’s been six weeks in the house, and phone calls from home come every Sunday afternoon.

“You seem to be having fun with Louis,” Edward says, and Harry tells him yes, Louis is just how Ed used to be when they pair of them were kids.

And Ed says he’s so genuinely sorry he wasn’t that sort of brother to Harry all those years.

Harry cries in Louis’ arms all night, telling him all about his whole entire life, unable to shake off his brother’s insane honesty and the thought that ‘that sort of brother’ was all he ever wanted.

-

Harry believes they have to win; there absolutely is no other way.

Final rolls around. Third. They get third.

Harry tells himself it’s all over and intends to start packing as soon as they return to the house.

But Louis disappears and reappears with Edward somehow (was he in the audience? why did no one say so?) and it makes no sense but Harry doesn’t know what’s making him happier - that Louis cares that much, or that his brother’s here – and Ed hugs him and promises that it’ll all be ok, this isn’t the end.

And it’s not.

-

Record album, promote album, release album. Tour home, tour America, Tour Australia, tour everywhere. Come home.

And repeat.

-

Eighteen and Harry’s near exhausted, he feels like he’s been touring for years. It’s over and and he’s at home and Louis is a million miles away in France with fucking _Eleanor_ and he guesses she must be nice but he really can’t give a single shit, because it’s Louis and it hurts; the knife twists further into his gut every day.

Ed seems to know and he’s been so nice about it, listening to Harry rave on about how fucking _pointless_ Eleanor is, and how Louis is such a _fucking prick_ sometimes, you know?

And Ed makes him tea and tells him about all the girls that appear to love him for no apparent reason other than the fact that he looks like Harry, and he shows him the songs he’s written and Harry promises to try and get at least one on their next album.

He owes him at least that much.

-

Harry sits down with Ed and they write a song about Louis but don’t tell anyone, and Harry for a moment can feel as though he doesn’t care what that _idiot Tomlinson_ that he loves so dearly is up to.

-

Eighteen and a half and Harry admits to Edward that he’s in love with Louis, and Ed smiles and says he’s got a sixth sense; he’s known that from the moment he saw Lou leap into Harry arms.


End file.
